Published by Morgan Road Books, an
imprint of The Doubleday Broadway
Publishing Group, a division of Random
House, Inc.
Morgan Road Books and the M colophon are
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Disclaimer: This book is not intended to take
the place of medical advice from a trained
medical professional. Readers are advised to
consult a physician or other qualified health
professional regarding treatment of their
medical problems. Neither the publisher nor
the author takes any responsibility for any
possible consequences from any treatment,
action, or application of medicine, herb,
or preparation to any person reading or
following the information in this book.

YOU & FOOD. PORTION CONTROL
EVEN YOU CAN HANDLE.
Copyright ÂŠ 2005 by Lisa R. Young.
Reprint 2011
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
Book design by Vicki Heda
Interior illustrations by Vicki Heda
ISBN 0-7679-2068-6

In memory of my beloved grandparents
To my grandmother, Celia Aronson, for her
strength and determination throughout her life,
and for inspiring me and encouraging me to pursue
a career in nutrition. And to my grandfather, Jessie
Aronson, whose words of wisdomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;follow it up,
keep the door open, and always leave a sweet
tasteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;remain with me forever. You both taught
me to think big and start small.

vii

acknowledgments

xi

foreword

1

introduction

10

one | america expands

30

two | the portion teller visuals

35

three | food groups and serving sizes

42

four | size matters

50

five | your portion personality

58

six | the portion teller eating plan

68

seven | smartsize your life

74

epilogue

80

appendix a | measuring up

88

appendix b | portion teller diary

95

appendix c | portion teller progress sheet

98

appendix d | serving sizes of most foods in all food groups

108

appendix e | the portion teller meal plans

114

appendix f | size-inflation time line

118

fegerences

120

resources

•chapter one•

america
expands

Pizza
INUED
T
N
O
DISC

1970’s
average
pizza pie

Today
Pizza Hut
Full House XL Pizza
•10•

Today
Little Ceasers
Big! Big! Pizza

M&M/
Mars
Candy bars

4X

times the size

since

1970

Hershey Bar Weight Increases Over Time

chocolate
8 oz
7 oz
4 oz
2.6 oz
1.6 oz
0.6 oz

â&#x20AC;˘11â&#x20AC;˘

diet foods
mid

1990s

weight
watchers
lean
cuisine

SMART ONES

larger portion sizes

HEARTY PORTIONS
more calories

100

The irony of diet food that advertised bigger sizes
with more calories seems lost in the diet industry.
â&#x20AC;˘12â&#x20AC;˘

coffee
20 oz

Starbucks Drink Sizes

Venti
16 oz
Grande
12 oz
Tall
8 oz
Short

NTINU
DISCO

ED

•13•

restaurants in Italy, where several swirls of a fork will
finish off an entire plate of fettuccine. Cappuccino can
be found only in one small size. This is the reason that
my client Jackie routinely loses twenty pounds every
time she takes her annual summer trip to Europe. I
hear this over and over again from American tourists
in Italy: “I ate all the time—pasta, cheese, bread, even
pizzas—and still lost weight.” The reason: They are
eating less be-cause the portions are much smaller.

DOWN
WITH
CALORIE
COUNTING

Here’s the bottom line: No matter what you eat, no
matter how healthy it is, no matter what the label
says—dietetic, low-fat, no-carb—the bigger the size,
the more calories it has. And if you eat more calories
than you burn, you gain weight. It doesn’t matter if
you eat low-fat, fruit-sweetened bran muffins until the
cows come home; if you’re eating ten of them a day,
you’re going to gain weight.
Expanding portions sizes is the primary reason that
we are facing an obesity epidemic. Calories add up
quickly when the portion sizes are so large. Nutrition
authorities recommend that we eat approximately
2,000 to 2,600 calories a day to stay the same

Healthy Choice adds
Extra Portions
dinners

1992
15 OZ

SWANSON’S
Hungry-Man
frozen dinners

Oscar Mayer

21.6 OZ

hotdogs added

Heineken bottle
introduced

Big and Juicy
Lender's sells
Big 'N Crusty
bagels
•14•

24 OZ

Arizona iced
tea introduced

63% increase
Thomas sandwichsize English muffin

weight, while older, sedentary women, and young
children should have a bit less and active men and
teenage boys a bit more. To put this in perspective, a
breakfast bagel and a slice of pizza add up to nearly
half of the calories recommended for an entire day.
Once you add the cream cheese, a soda, and dinner
at a Chinese restaurant, your calorie count for the
day can easily top 3,000.
But who can look at food and know how many
calories are in it? Nobody, not even the experts. I was
asked by the Center for Science in the Public Interest
(CSPI), a consumer advocacy group in Washington,
D.C., to study how accurately dietitians are able to
judge the calorie con-tent of different restaurant
meals. We showed 200 dietitians five plates of food
that are actually served in restaurants—lasagna, a
Caesar salad with chicken, a tuna salad sandwich,
a porter-house steak platter, and a hamburger with
onion rings. We asked the dietitians to tally up the
dam-age, and guess what? Although they were all
seasoned professionals, they had no idea how many
calories were in these foods. Some underestimated
the calories by as much as half.

40% increase

M&M/Mars

Pillsbury Grands!
Biscut

Twix bars

Little Caesars
Pizza by the foot

When Marian Burros, a renowned food and nutrition
writer for the New York Times, heard about the
experiment, she decided to put four experts—Dr.
Marion Nestle, my NYU thesis advisor (and now
Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition); Dr. Isobel
Contento, chair of Columbia University Teacher’s
College program in nutrition; Gaynelle Clay-Williams,
then a doctoral candidate at Columbia and obesity
researcher at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital; and
me—in the hot seat. We were given eight heaping
plates of fatty food and were quizzed on the calorie
and fat content. It was a disaster. We were all over the
place with every single dish, either under or over on
calories or fat. Not one of us was remotely on target. If
the nutrition experts can’t figure out the calories in a
restaurant meal, who can?
This is why calorie counting is useless. It works only
in a completely controlled environment with carefully
weighed and calibrated food. We are not llab rats. We
do not eat and live in a sealed-off bubble, like the space
shuttle, where calories are measured by laboratory
analysis. If you eat a reastaurant for only one meal of
the day, you have completely lost count of your calorie
intake. This was the case with my client Barb. She came
McDonald’s

HOW MUCH ARE YOU
REALLY EATING?
if you think these servings seem small.

YOU & FOOD will teach you how to understand portion sizes so that you can lose
weight and stop dieting, no matter what your Portion Personality might be. Are you a
Mindless Muncher who snacks all day, a Dinner Lover who enjoys one big meal a day, or
maybe a Volume Eater who always wants to sit down with a huge plate of food at every
meal? No matter what you eating habits, YOU & FOOD offers a personalized eating
plan that is right for you. Instead of giving up the foods you love, learn to smartsize
them with the help of one of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading nutritionists.

Lisa R Young, PH.D., R.D.

MORE than you think, especially

you & food

A baseball of cereal, a golf ball of jelly beans, eight dice of
cheese, a yo-yo sized bagel, a computer mouse-sized potato,
a deck of cards-sized steak, a tennis ball of pretzels...